


Wonder

by CatHeights



Category: Smallville
Genre: Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-04
Updated: 2004-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatHeights/pseuds/CatHeights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex is haunted by the seven weeks of memories he's missing. The story takes place in Season 3, sometime after <i>Whisper</i>, but focuses on the events from <i>Shattered</i> and <i>Asylum</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wonder

_The world blurred, and he reached out a trembling hand. Shattered glass slipped through his fingers. The glittering shards hurt, but left no mark on his skin. There was no blood._

_One shaky step, and the glass disappeared. The window shimmered, perfect and unbroken, a visible taunt. Was it laughing at him? He stared at the reddish light coming through the pane and noticed how clear the room had grown. Everything was solid, real, almost too real like sunlight reflecting off a snow bank. _

_He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he was falling. Darkness seeped into him, and there were no ledges to grasp, no hand to hold onto. He tried to scream. The sound warbled and died in his throat. _

_His back came up against something cold and flat, and he instinctively tried to arch upward, but he couldn't move. There was some sort of metal cage covering his body. He tensed intending to force himself from confinement, but his arms remained by his side. Underneath that contraption, he was strapped to the bed._

_Panic, stronger than any he had ever felt, squeezed his lungs causing his breath to come out in shuddering gasps. His eye caught movement, and he turned his head, the only part of his body he could move. He noticed a figure partially emerging from the darkness._

_"Dad?"_

_"It's for your own good, son."_

_"Dad. Don't do this. Don't do this to me."_

_His father ran a finger along his cheek, and the touch burned. It moved into him like a knife cutting through his spine._

_"I have your best interest at heart."_

_When he opened his mouth to protest, something hard was pressed against his tongue. Gagging, he tried to spit it out, but it wouldn't move. His heart pounded, the sound creating a violent echo in his head. He sought his father's gaze, pleading, but there was no mercy from that quarter, there never was, there never would be. Anger and fear swirled up his throat seeking release, but they were trapped inside. He choked as current raced along his skin, evaporating the knowledge from his mind._

 

It was the choking that woke him, or rather the choking like sounds he was making in the waking world. Lex sat up, struggling to catch his breath. His hands clutched the sheets, and he forced himself to ignore the ache in his chest. Panic and fury were pushed aside as he focused. A deep inhale, and Lex reached for the dream. His mind came up blank; the images had already faded.

"Damn it!" The words were a low, breathy growl. The rage was so strong it nauseated him. His grasp on the sheets tightened. Knuckles straining, he pulled until he heard the sound of fabric tearing. Shit! He had to be more careful. The sheet fell from his hands, and he kicked the covers away.

He didn't know who it was, yet, but he was sure at least one person in the mansion was on Dad's payroll. The last thing he needed was word getting out that he was shredding sheets – destroying things. His father would have him sharpening pencils back at Belle Reve instead of taking up office space.

Lex sat up and rubbed at the back of his neck. He had to wonder at the things Clark chose to tell him. Sure the knowledge was a tactical advantage. His father thought him weak. It was an assumption that could be twisted to work in his favor. But if Clark truly wanted to help, why did he continue to withhold information? Lex was positive his friend could help bridge the seven week gap in his memory, but whenever he brought up the subject, Clark just gave him pointed looks or made cryptic references. Every one of those gazes held knowledge. Why the hell wouldn't he share it?

Oh, but Clark had been happy enough to pass on the bit of gossip that Lex had reached a new level of worthlessness in his father's eyes. By the way, your father's offer to come back to work, it's another one of his goddamn games. You're to be a pencil sharpener in a world that rarely uses pencils. It was bad enough the whole damn town was staring at him, waiting for him to shatter, but then Clark had to go and yank away his remaining bit of hope.

A soft hiss of air escaped his lips, and Lex dropped his head to his hands. He wasn't being fair. Clark had only been trying to help. He'd had his own share of problems, but he'd still been concerned enough to warn him not to trust his father. Besides, it wasn't as if he hadn't already been questioning the sincerity of the offer to return to LuthorCorp. Dad and sincere were two words that should never be used in a sentence. And if that sincerity was directed at him, it was a sure sign that he was about to be treated to another one of Dad's lessons in life.

Lex's finger traced patterns on the sheet as he stared ahead, eyes slightly unfocused. Why couldn't he just ask Clark a question and get an answer? Because that wasn't how their friendship worked. That wasn't how his life worked. Every interaction, no matter how friendly it appeared, was a battle – a strategic endeavor with knowledge being the ultimate goal. Sometimes he wondered if it was his Luthor nature that had started them on this cryptic dance of evasions where questions were turned around so easily.

No, the blame wasn't all his. The Kents were a fortress of secrets. At one point, he had hoped to be included in those secrets. He had believed that Clark would trust him, but that hadn't happened. A part of Lex was sure his dishonesty, his inability to trust, was part of the reason Clark held that last bit back. That self-admission didn't stop him from wanting that trust. It didn't stop him from wanting everything.

As his pulse quickened, Lex swallowed and closed his eyes. There were some dreams he had no trouble recalling, those were the ones where he woke tasting Clark on his lips. He swore he had put this infatuation behind him and moved on to the safer ground of only wanting Clark's friendship. Of course that was before Helen had tried to kill him, and he had his little bout with insanity. It seemed his stay in the asylum had taken more than just seven weeks of his life – it had also taken his mental control where Clark Kent was concerned.

The desire for Clark came over him at the strangest moments. Ordinary every day things like buttoning his shirt could trigger it. Yesterday, the site of a minor motor vehicle accident had been the cause. A car pausing at a stop sign had been rear-ended, and the sound of metal crumpling had made him start to shake. He'd stumbled to his car and had barely closed the door when he'd begun to picture touching Clark's chest.

_So much power and warmth rested beneath his hands. His fingers glided over golden, perfect skin that begged to be worshiped. Clark's mouth touched his, and the trust and love conveyed in that kiss warmed places he'd buried in the cold long ago. He was safe._

Lex shook with need. That fantasy was as vivid today as it had been yesterday, and the day before. He had to find Clark and demand the answers he needed to know. He'd beg Clark to tell him. He'd beg Clark to touch him. Yes, he would beg.

No.

It wouldn't work.

He opened his eyes and turned aside the sheet. Asking Clark wasn't an option. Besides, being told would be no substitution for retrieving his actually memories. He needed to do this on his own. Lex Luthor wasn't going to beg.

The only path open to him was his dreams. Somewhere in the chaos of his unconscious, snowflakes of memory drifted. If he could get at those dreams, he could separate the nonsense from the truth. The problem was as soon as he woke, the dreams fled, and he was left with the empty cold of melted snowflakes, the emotional remains of memory destroyed.

The dream's residual anger still lingered, and it made him want to trash the room or scream until his voice went raw. He did neither. Instead, he got out of bed and headed to the shower to begin the daily ritual of washing away the night's emotions and pretending to be in control. Believing, after all, was half the battle.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

His footsteps were so loud. He had a ridiculous urge to shush himself as if his presence was an affront to the silence. Dawn was more than an hour away, and the mansion felt like a slumbering giant who would be decidedly cranky if awoken too soon. Just because he slept very little these days didn't mean everything else had to suffer the same sleepless fate.

The glass in his hand had grown sweaty from being held too tightly. He forced himself to loosen his grip. As he sipped the orange juice, Lex concentrated on the sweet taste hoping to clear his mind of these strange thoughts.

When he had first been released from Belle Reve, he'd slept longer and better than he ever had in his life. For a few days, he'd actually felt at peace. Lex remembered the oddness of waking in a stark room with his father by his side. The knowledge that he'd been institutionalized combined with the realization that he was missing several weeks of memories should have horrified him, but it hadn't. He'd been the focus of his father's concern, and that had been strangely comforting. The details of his "psychotic break" had seemed somehow less important than the need to believe in his father. He'd allowed himself to be fooled by false concern because he wanted to be fooled.

He should have known better. He did know better, and his mind had refused to allow him to cling to his delusions. Within a few days of his release, his sleep had grown shorter, and he had begun to wake to a feeling of unease. Now, everyday it grew worse with his nights wracked by vague dreams and his days tormented by powerful emotions that had no context.

_Dad, what did you do to me?_

How many times a day did he ask that question, never quite sure that he really wanted the answer? Sometimes it almost seemed preferable to believe he was insane and that this paranoia was a sign he wasn't cured. Dad wouldn't go so far as to have him committed if he wasn't really mentally ill, would he? Years of his father's insinuations about his sanity flickered through his mind, and Lex knew without a doubt, that, yes, his father would do such a thing.

The only remaining question was why. What had he known or done that had driven his father to such a desperate measure? Or at least he hoped it was a desperate measure, a last option.

Christ, he was tired. Lex walked over to his desk and leaned against it. After finishing his orange juice, he set the glass down. While he was no stranger to loneliness, the last time he could recall feeling so completely isolated was when Pamela had disappeared right after his mother's funeral.

Yet, he wasn't really alone because he had the feelings from his dreams to keep him company during the day. The emotions lurked underneath his skin, and he had to constantly fight to keep them there, so that he could hide them from the daylight where prying eyes could see.

Every day was a battle, but at least rage, fear, and loneliness were things with which he was familiar. Lex had handled them before and could do so again. It was an emotion almost foreign to him that was sabotaging his control – wonder.

Sometimes he woke to this feeling that was beyond any spiritual experience, beyond even a child's awe of Santa, a sense of wonder coated with satisfaction. The feeling was always immediately followed by a loss so sharp that Lex swore he was bleeding. He knew that the knowledge of something beautiful and necessary to his soul had been taken from him. A key moment had been erased, and he wanted it back. He needed to know what had caused that sense of wonder.

Lex's hands shook as the urge to find Clark once again came upon him. He'd pour out his soul and ask for an explanation.

_Clark_

Rage flared. Ah yes, the other emotion besides desire that Clark evoked in him these days. Why did he feel such anger toward Clark? The rage lasted barely a minute fading into feelings of hope, gratitude and – wonder.

_Wonder._

Clark had to know. He just needed to ask.

No. He had to stop thinking like this. Clark was a distraction. His father was the real threat, and he needed to focus all his energy on handling that threat, rather than wasting time on ridiculous emotions. Knowledge was power, and he'd lost seven weeks of power. Somehow, he had to get those weeks back, so he could battle his father. That was what mattered.

The silence of the mansion seemed unbearably confining, and Lex found he couldn't stand it anymore. He headed out to the gardens. The air outside was cold and damp, but it cleared his head enough that he could begin to focus. Soon the day would begin, and he'd be ready to face whatever his father threw at him.

As Lex stood there waiting for sunrise, he knew he was lying to himself. Yes, it was important to stay ahead of his father, just as it had been for most of his life, but the need to recover those missing seven weeks had very little to do with his father's game. It was the wonder. He'd do anything to remember what evoked that emotion.

Anything.


End file.
